Plot Summary of Volume 4: North
Background Implants are the future. Thanks to General Rox and his Implant Program, a new wave of soldiers have been born. However, despite all this new found power, Rox still yearns to finish a mission that has long eluded him, to kill the creature known as The Collector. As luck would have it, after disappearing for years, The Collector has returned. This time, the creature is looking for a deadly device that could tip the scale in its favor and aid it in its grandiose goals. On the other side of the world, Fang Snow's daughter, Falena Snow, is trying to find out the truth on her mother's fate. She's been searching far and wide and may have finally stumbled onto what she's been looking for. Yet, the information she has discovered comes with a deadly price. While these stories unfold, the halfkinds continue their fight for freedom, and they're getting closer than ever. SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Plot Summary Build Up and Back Stories Once again, as with the other volumes of the Halfkind series, Volume 4 consists of several sub-stories. ''Falena Snow'' Falena Snow is the daughter of Fang Snow. After the events of Halfkinds Volume 2: Horus, she becomes an orphan, forcing to live with distant relatives. Many members of the Snow clan have changed their names due to the name’s negative connotation due to Fenrir Snow’s actions. Falena, however, still remains proud of her family’s legacy, and spends most of her life trying to figure out her Mother’s fate, which has been classified. Falena grows up to be a well adjusted wolf, but she secretly spends most of her time hacking into United Species Alliance databases in order to obtain information about her mother and the Snow Family. During one of these searches, she stumbles into a report called Operation Alphas belonging to General Tito Rox. The report details the Alpha Project and explains the fates of her mother and uncles. She also learns that her mother became an implant test subject and discovered her transformation into Blackwolf. Falena becomes disgusted by what she learns and contemplates whistleblowing this information to the Brotherhood of Wolves. The Brotherhood themselves have had a deteriorating relationship with the United Species Alliance, and Falena’s information could lead to an all out war. Falena struggles with the power that comes with such information. Before Falena can act on it, though, her house is broken into by a human intruder. Falena realizes it is not a burglar, but rather a hit man, and she surmises that she has become a target because of the information she possesses. She quickly downloads the data into an implant within her brain (used for memory retention) and narrowly makes an escape and flees to an undisclosed cabin within the Wolf’s Den, hoping that her pursuer will lose her trail. Falena prepares a defensive strategy for her hideout, planting mines and traps so that when her pursuer comes, she’ll be ready. Unfortunately, the man proves to be quite indestructible and after a hard fought but one sided battle, Falena is beaten to a pulp and the data has been stolen. Falena has lost her information and remains bruised and broken, but determined to show the world the truth of what happened to the her mother. ''Intruders Underground'' Iris, Ivy, and Lucy have set up an underground base on the Moon known as Nyx. It is here they develop their plans to grow their society of halfkinds, training and preparing their species for the inevitable war that will come when they fight for their freedom. Lucy is in charge of replicating Lionel Changer’s work so that a new generation of hybrids will be the face of the halfkinds, while Ivy assists Lucy and continues to grow her telekinetic powers. Ivy Lawton is nearing her mid twenties, and has spent most of her life helping Lucy with her project. Though they have made progress, there have been many failure experiments. In this case, the first wave of new hybrids were unsuccessful. They were physically strong, but mentally savage, and thus became known as the brutes. Iris and Lucy decided that these creatures would have to be ended, but Ivy pleaded with them to spare the brutes. Iris relented and Ivy has taken care of the brutes ever since their creation, tending to them like pets and has built a motherly rapport with these creatures. During Volume 4, Ivy and Lucy continue their work as usual while Iris is out retrieving some key information that will help their cause. It is at this time, they receive an alert notifying them that there are intruders in the vicinity to the entrance to Nyx. These intruders could possibly expose the existence of the halfkinds. Ivy is instructed to take out these intruders (who are members of a small crime syndicate), and to take the brutes with her. Ivy questions why they brutes need to be involved, but Iris convinces Ivy that they will be much needed back up and that Iris saw in her visions that they would be needed in order for Ivy’s attack to be successful. Ivy and the brutes confront the intruders, and after a tough battle, Ivy is victorious. However, all of the brutes die in the process, and Ivy is furious at her mother, who convinced her to bring the brutes even though Ivy objected. ''Ash Han and Her Master'' Ash Han is a human assassin raised since childhood by the elephant crime lord Two Van Faye. She excels in the art of killing having been trained by Van Faye’s best. She was also gifted the newest implants and is the only non-Alliance member to go through the Implant Program, a gift from General Rox to Van Faye for her help during the pursuit of The Collector. During the events of Volume 4, Rox contacts Van Faye to contract out Han and her services after the reappearance of The Collector. Rox knows The Collector is after Mark Allen, and needs Van Faye’s star pupil to protect him. Han begins her service by setting up a trap at Mark Allen’s home. Allen has actually been sent away into hiding, so Han anticipates The Collector at Allen’s home. Han is able to scare The Collector away, but unable to finish the creature. This prompts the wrath of Van Faye, who has grown paranoid that The Collector will be after her. Van Faye makes a straight trip to from Fan Zui Bin to Allied City, believing that she will be safe as long as she is near Ash Han. Both Rox and Han are weary of Van Faye’s arrival. The Collector ambushes Ash Han and Van Faye at Van Faye’s hotel penthouse. Ash Han gets knocked out, and The Collector learns of Mark Allen’s location, Sector Six, from Van Faye. After Han recovers, she heads to Sector Six, anticipating The Collector’s arrival. The Collector makes short work of Mark Allen’s protectors, but spares Ash Han. The creature then decapitates Mark Allen and leaves with his head. Ash Han then returns back to Two Van Faye, dreading the idea of punishment from Van Faye. ''Iris Lawton and the GTS'' Iris Lawton first begins her journey taking out a thorn from her past: Don Leons. The man has become demoted thanks to the aftermath of Operation Halfkinds, and has been working years in a dead end admin job. She locates him in the Pacific Northwest and dispatches him in his office. She then uses his credentials to locate Eli Winde, targeting because of the knowledge he has concerning a device called the GTS. Winde is now retired and lives in a mansion off the Australian coast. Iris resumes her identity as The Collector, teleports to New Zealand at Winde’s compound and the two battle. Iris easily defeats Winde thanks to her telekinesis and while Winde doesn’t have any information on the GTS, he directs Lawton to a man who does: Mark Allen. Iris then kills Winde and proceeds on her journey. Since the events of Volume 3, Mark Allen has been working under General Rox in Allied City, improving implant technology and is now the acting head of Rox’s science development group. Upon hearing of Winde’s death and Allen’s status as a target, Rox puts Allen into protective custody and sends him to an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Allied City. Iris is unaware of Rox’s orders and heads to Allen’s home in Allied City. There, she is blindsided by Ash Han and is forced to retreat, but not before putting a tracker on Ash Han. She then uses the tracker to confront Han and Two Van Faye at Van Faye’s penthouse in Allied City. Iris easily defeats Ash Han, knocking her out, and is able to draw Mark Allen’s location from Van Faye: a place known as Sector Six. Iris breaks into Sector Six, and takes out Mark Allen’s guards. However, she spares Ash Han, and decapitates Mark Allen, taking his head in the process. She then sends the severed head to Lucy, who plans to extract the GTS schematics and information from Allen’s brain using implant technology. Iris then states that she is going to go after Van Faye. Lucy warns Iris that this is not a good idea, as they already have what the need and going after Van Faye is not necessary. However, Iris has Van Faye on her own personal hit list, and wants revenge for her role in Fenrir’s fate as a soulless, implant beast. Conclusion Ash Han returns to Van Faye and prepares herself for verbal and physical abuse from Van Faye. However, when she enters the penthouse, all the guards are dead and Han sees Van Faye’s fate in The Collector’s hands. Van Faye commands Han to protect her, but Han remains hesitant. However, after some verbal lashing, Han relents and proceeds to attack The Collector. They both battle valiantly, and at the climax of their battle, The Collector’s mask gets knocked off, revealing the halfkind behind it to both Han and Van Faye. Iris has been exposed, and explains to Han what she is: an outcast like Han. Meanwhile, Van Faye continues to scold Han. Feeling the abuse she has felt all her life, Han finally rebels, and throws her yari at Van Faye’s head, killing her instantly. Iris Lawton then offers Han an opportunity to join her cause, and teleports away. Iris returns back to Nyx and is confronted by an emotionally distraught Ivy, who is angry at Iris for needlessly sacrificing the brutes in the defense of their base. Iris reveals it was not needless, that if the brutes hadn’t been there as decoys, Ivy would have been killed. Iris then explains to her daughter the difficulties of being a leader and the willing sacrifices she has to make because of her powers. Though she is still angry, Ivy understands and forgives her mother. Iris then discusses the data they have pulled from Mark Allen’s head. Lucy says that what they were looking for is indeed in West’s brain: The GTS, also known as the Genetic Targeting System. This device is capable of targeting a species of the user’s choosing to wipe them out completely while other non targeted species are unharmed. Iris plans to use this in the upcoming war as her weapon of mass destruction, hoping it can help her species win the war much like how a WMD helped the intelligent species win their war during The Ark Rebellion. Lastly, General Rox meets up with Falena Snow’s pursuer, who was sent by Rox. The agent confirms Snow’s data has been wiped and termination will occur soon for Falena Snow. Rox then shows a video feed of the events at Van Faye’s penthouse, which he had tapped, pausing in on the moment when The Collector’s identity is revealed. Rox tells the agent that halfkinds still exist, and thus making Operation HORUS incomplete. He assigns the agent the task of finding all the halfkinds that exist and destroy them, thus making the mission complete. The agent is then revealed to be an implant heavy Brock West.